


An Aspect Overanalysis

by Miki_and_company



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Analysis, Aspects, Character Analysis, Essay format, Gen, Images, Philosophy, Wordy, literary themes, quotes, symbolic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 14:08:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9185083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miki_and_company/pseuds/Miki_and_company
Summary: An in-depth analysis of all known Homestuck aspects, based on bullshiting about old French philosophy, Gothic literature, platonic realism, and all sorts of fun nerdy things. Also not only focusing on describing the aspects themselves, but relating them to one another and giving examples of how they function symbolically withing the story.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This work was built halfway between a fun game and a serious analysis. Though it may not match to your ideas about what is represented through the aspects of Homestuck, and though I seriously doubt this was in anyway part of the author’s intent, it is an expansion upon other analysis and personal speculation based on in-text examples or gap-filling. You can read it seriously, like you can read it for fun, and neither would be incorrect. I am fully open to comments or criticism on the way I have interpreted Aspects, and in fact wish for your feedback!

##  INTRODUCTION:

If you have found this analysis, I highly doubt that you ignore the existence of Aspects, and their presence in the _Homestuck_ Universe. However, the question still remains a hard one to answer: What, exactly, _is_ an Aspect?

This Essay will work with the [Tex Talks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2TzBgFx3mo) interpretation of an aspect. In fact, the work of Tex Talks and his video Essays on _Homestuck,_ platonic realism and aspect analysis. In his interpretation, Talks refers to aspects as fundamental elements of a world built on platonic realism. Platonic realism is a theory which builds itself on the principle that things, rather than being made of atoms and matter that combine to form complex objects, are made of fundamental ideas that can combine to form more complex ideas. Though this is practically inapplicable in real life, in the world of _Homestuck,_ it is a very real thing, as we can see through the way Alchemiter work.

Aspects tie into all of this by being the essential building blocks of this reality, the undividable elements of platonic realism. If you wish to explore more deeply the concept of this being put into place, then I shall refer you to Tex Talks video on platonic realism, linked here.

This text, however, will be more of a classical aspect analysis, though built on a more complex model than most, and putting emphasis on the relationship between aspects as well as their own definition. Though it has not been confirmed whether the aspects we know are the only existing aspects of their world, we will work on the assumption that they are. This leaves us with the building blocks of Void, Space, Time, Light, Life, Hope, Blood, Mind, Heart, Breath, Rage, and Doom to work with.

If all of this is fine by you, then without further ado, let me tell you about _Homestuck._

## The Three Aspect Categories:

One of the first things I asked myself when first faced with _Homestuck_ Aspects was on whether they were supposed to represent physical or metaphorical concepts. Reading further, it starts to become evident that this is an invalid question: they are, by definition, both. Despite this, there seems to be a divide between the aspects that do concrete things and the aspects that more than anything steer the course of the story and of their universe. How can, after all, Rage (a mere emotion), be conceptually as important as Time?  They are both important, but they belong to different realms, one being the individual and the other the universe. In philosophy, the term _Dasein_ is associated the concept of simply “being.” It also is divided in two, being In-itself, and being For-itself. The former is associable to objective aspects, whereas the latter is associable to subjective aspects.

Working with this mindset, I’ve begun to differentiate between _Objective_ aspects, or aspects that seem to be unavoidably rooted in the mechanisms of the universe, with or without the input of living beings, or rather without the input of choice and agency by the players. They are the factors of the universe being _In-Itself,_ the things the players can’t change through the way they act or the choices they make. Players who are gifted with objective aspects can alter some facets of this being, but unless they decide to break the very fabric of the context in which they exist, their power is limited in that extend. They are more expected to work along with these aspects to favor their own group, self and timeline over others, often with mitigated success.

  _Subjective_ aspects, or aspects that start to have an influence only when in the hands of a being. It is being _For-itself,_ or the ensemble of the choices and actions that can be taken from a set state of being, the things, in a way, that allows there to be diverging timelines in the first place.

The difference between those two categories being the presence or absence of Life, which can also be understood as agency, the thing that will decide whether a timeline gets to be _Dasein,_ existing both in-itself and for-itself, or not.  I added a third category of _Transformative_ aspects to describe the two agency/life related aspects.

The aspects belonging to the Objective category are: Void, Space, Time and Light (represented at the center of the convection model).

The aspects belonging to the Subjective category are: Hope, Blood, Mind, Heart, Breath and Rage (represented on the outskirt of the Model).

The aspects belonging to the transformative category are: Life and Doom (represented in-between the two other layers of the model).

All aspects are represented in the same category, and in opposition, to the aspect which is generally accepted as their antonym in terms of meaning. Though they are opposites, often times their importance can be very closely related.

 

 

## Individual and Relational analysis: The Objective Aspects

The Objective aspects are Void, Space, Time and Light.

The known Void players are: Roxy Lalonde, Equius Zahhak and Horuss Zahhak.

The known Space players are: Jade Harley, Calliope, Kanaya Maryam and Porrim Maryam.

The known Time players are: Dave Strider, Caliborn, Aradia Megido and Damara Megido.

The known Light players are: Rose Lalonde, Vriska Serket and Aranea Serket.

 

**Void** is commonly associated with emptiness, or in the case of Talks, uniformity. Void players are known to obscure the void around them. The most prominent player of that aspect we know is Roxy Lalonde, a rogue of void, shown with abilities to turn invisible or “rob the nothingness out of something”, literally making objects appear out of nothing.

In Calliope’s words:

 UU: the void aspect is fascinating, thoUgh.   
UU: its heroes preside over the essence of lack, or nothingness. the obfUscation of knowledge, or its oUtright destrUction. 

(Hussie, 6413)

The phrase which I find most revealing in this is “the essence of lack”. Void is a state in which the absence of energy, structure or matter is summarized and gathered.  It can be hard to wrap one’s head around, but that is exactly what the void is about. It is the state in which there is no state, making it probably one of the most stable aspects out there. It is what is left after everything has been undone, and from which everything needs sooner or later to stem from. It is the aspect of no _Dasein._ With the void, nothing is For-itself, but nothing is In-itself either. There are endless possibilities, in the end ultimately meaningless. This is probably why dead players and dead timelines are associated with the void, given how they are possibilities that have been robbed of their _being_.

In relationship to the concept of an objective aspect, the void session is a good example of a state in which player agency cannot alter the predetermined outcome.

Talks talks about the void players’ struggle for relevance, but also about the way void is not so much a complete absence of things, rather a uniform and undistinguishable stew of everything, chasing fruitlessly after relevance.

To me, void can then better be described as a recipient for every fully deconstructed system. This fully deconstructed system is mostly useless in its pure form, and needs the help of other objective aspects to be understood and exploited. The possibilities need being to be exploitable.

The two aspects with the most ability to act upon void are Space and Time.

This may be linked to the way Calliope and Caliborn act as patrons to the players of the Alpha “Void” session, concretely bringing about most of the action within it. Maybe the fact that there is neither a Time nor a Space player in the alpha session is partly responsible as to why it was a void session to begin with.

Time and Space conceptually work with one another almost as one, in the way paradoxes are formed and maintained, but they each have a different way of exploiting what is theirs.

 

 

**Time** , essentially, is work. The easiest way to describe it would be to compare it to a machine ceaselessly churning out new configurations of space until it finds one which is able to perpetuate itself. The gear symbol on the time God tier is quite reminiscent of that interpretation.

Both Aradia and Dave are shown to work extremely hard to assure their teams of certain outcomes, such as when Dave travels back several time to exploit his consort’s market to collect enough boons and grist to assure all players of material security, or when Aradia summons massive amounts of her doom selves to save the alpha timeline. Time is an aspect consistently associated with grinding, even with Caliborn and his quest to collect the Felt from taking over different planets.

Time players are also able to exploit and explore these different configurations in order to assure a liable alpha timeline for their players. It also functions as a way to eliminate what is non-being, what will not get the chance to be For-itself, with ineffective timelines dying out and even Lord English destroying the void and what is left of non-being entities. By destroying void, however, he also destroys possibilities, somewhat how time and the actions taken through it destroy the endless string of possibility brought by void.

Time destroys void as it creates a path to be taken. It takes away the white sheet of it, and draws on it.

\---

If Time is work, elimination and choice to stick to one state of being For-itself, **Space** is the exploration, propagation and commitment to possibilities in regards to the state of being In-itself.

Exploration, as we can see space players have their dream selves be awake before the game even begins, and propagation, as it is explicitly stated by Kanaya:

KANAYA: I Somehow Came To Understand Space Meant More Than Just Space   
KANAYA: Like Not Just   
KANAYA: Physical Room And Dimension For Stars To Occupy   
KANAYA: Its   
KANAYA: Deeper Than That   
KANAYA: A Field Related To Propagation   
KANAYA: The Ones Who Create It

 

(Hussie, 9537)

Space is indeed not only a physical room and dimension for stars to occupy, but expansion, propagation, organization and growth. It is the structure that permits for time to operate, and that builds on the working of time to further expand. It is often about making something out of nothing, or outlining it, as its symbol suggests. The frog is a good example of that: the consistent breeding of essentially meaningless beings until they become everything.

Time affects the limitations of a player’s choice, Space affect the limitations of a player’s context and being. It extracts from the void ways in which the world is configured and the way players will have to deal with it. Again, the universe frog, the way Kanaya’s purpose is closely related to reproduction are all means to settles ways for the universe to be In-itself.

 

**Light** is the opposite of void, in the way it manages to navigate the pathways of what _is,_ and settles on a way of being, most often the most favorable way of being in terms of time and space. To me, light is essentially the currency of the universe, the essence of _Dasein._

I hear you saying that I said objective aspects where only part of the whole concept of _Dasein,_ only being In-itself, and saying light also is For-itself would be contradicting. It’s true, but the way I see it the two concepts are always interconnected no matter what. Only, with light, the being of the universe is not in the hands of the players either, but still in the hands of the universe and its actions. Actions like creating perfect paradoxes and landing a certain roll of dice, things which are not set in stone by the nature simply being, but also acting and eliminating possibilities through it, light is the In-itself acting For-itself, hopefully inciting Luck, but without still giving the non-light player agency in the way these things are structured. _Dasein_ is the existence of being that is peculiar to humans, and thus still exclusive of light and luck.

Vriska in particular, as a thief of light, is prone to bend the agency and state of being of the universe to her will and ambitions. She can influence the outcome of a coin flip or a dice roll in the more concrete and minor instance of this happening, but she can also bend events to justify creating Bec Noir through “fate” and have herself be reinserted into the story through the whereabouts of a juju she herself dug up. She can influence the minds of others, and if we consider others, from her perspective, part of “the universe” and its random factors, that is also a way in which she bends light. Aranea, the sylph of life, displays similar powers and will to shape the being of the universe and the things that surround it to fit her vision of it.

Rose, on the other hand, is merely a “seer” of light. She, herself, has no control over the shape and form the universe will take, this ability to perceive her lack of agency early on is probably what drove her to live in “Bad Faith”, or in a state of denial of the power of her own being For-herself, refusing to follow her quest, and refusing to assume the consequences of her actions for it, instead seeking power within darker forces, less bound to the will of an organized universe, more bound to void and inscrutability. Even as she goes god tier she compromises her agency through alcohol. Only when confronted directly by another light player, one who has agency, does she finally assumes that things aren’t as fixed as she perceived them to be, and that her influence and knowledge of the universe being is important.

 

## Individual and Relational analysis: The Subjective Aspects

 

The subjective aspects are: Hope, Blood, Mind, Heart, Breath and Rage

The known Hope players are: Jake English, Eridan Ampora and Cronus Ampora

The known blood players are: Karkat Vantas and Kankri Vantas

The known mind players are: Terezi Pyrope and Latula Pyrope

The known heart players are: Dirk Strider, Nepeta Leijon and Meulin Leijon

The known breath players are: John Egbert, Tavros Nitram and Rufioh Nitram

The known rage players are: Gamzee Makara and Kurloz Makara

 

**Hope** is the purest form of subjectivity, in that it represents all of the possibilities that lay before a _Dasein_ being, someone who is there, exist, and has agency to do everything they wish to do. It is a being, human or troll, who is already In-Itself, but can do anything For-itself. It also often appears in the way they seem able to do impossible things, simply by believing them hard enough (such as Jake with his Brain-Ghost Dirk, or Eridan and his “Wwhite science wwand”).

Jake expresses hope rather literally, once he finds himself able to exploit it, but the interesting part of the aspect comes around with the Amporas. They are respectively a Prince and a Bard of hope, classes that are shown to be more prone to destroy and antagonize their aspect rather than grow and exploit it. They are both prime example of living in Bad Faith, refusing to take responsibility for the agency they have. Eridan ruins his For-itself by murdering about half of his friends, and also manifests bad faith in refusing to challenge his beliefs when faced with the existence of magic. He is prone to put the blame of his situation on external sources exclusively.

CA: kan its hard   
GA: What   
CA: being a kid and growwing up   
CA: its hard and nobody understands 

(Hussie, 4243)

Cronus, on the other hand, compromises his For-itself through, in parts, letting his In-itself—and the way he is unhappy about it—justify what he does and how he behaves. He thinks himself human, specifically a 50’s Grease-style human, and expresses disbelief at why exactly would lower-castes not be interested in dating him despite of his blood.

 

**Blood** has been commonly associated with relationships and trust, and I don’t disagree with that. The way I see it, it is subjectivity in regards to other subjective beings, and the power subjective being have over one another. Karkat, who is the Knight of Blood, strongly desires at the beginning of his arc to lead his team. Even if he does eventually give up on that, his actions and support consistently bring about cooperation and teamwork. He is the one who directed his friends to troll the humans, which may have been one of the most important actions made in the narrative. Compared to other players, he has little to no physical power. He spends a great deal of time trying to sway people around him, and despite it being clumsy and aggressive it more often than not succeeds in changing people’s course of action, whether it be in accordance or defiance to his own will. He is also obsessed with romance, glorifying relationships as a key aspect of being and feeling.

Kankri, Seer of Blood, on the other hand is embracing the cause of social justice (in his way), and is characterized by his interventions with people, correcting them on their language or phrasing. He may not fully understand what he is preaching, but what he sees is the power in words and communication to influence the decisions, feelings and overall being of people.

This is not to mention Karkat’s ancestor, The Sufferer, not a sgrub player, but a preacher who brought new ideologies through words and feelings to the troll world.

When we consider the word “blood” itself as related to the comic, it is also linked strongly to identity and power structures: the blood castes influence the power trolls have over one another, trolls type in their blood color as to assert their identity. A mutant blood stands out from the rest by merely existing. Blood asserts a value to sentient beings, and this value relates to their influence, at least in theory.

In Essence, we can say that the blood aspect is primarily associated with the power of subjective beings over other subjective beings: the clash between ideologies and universes that can sometime create conflict and sometimes solve them. It’s a fluid (haha gettit) aspect, hard to define, but crucial in critical moments because it determines whether different people will fight together or against one another. _Dasein_ vs _Dasein._

 

**Mind** is probably the most concrete manifestation of being For-itself. In short, it’s the decisions and paths taken in the situations made possible by space, time and light especially. Mind is both a constant and a variant: while it may be possible to predict the way someone will act by knowing their feelings, thoughts and ambitions, it still often leaves many possibilities open. Terezi is the Seer of Mind, and as such she is more easily able to guess what people will do, and when they will be susceptible to listening to her. She is also symbolic of justice: because the actions she sees people do are contextualized for her, her own actions can have as a purpose to judge and forgive those who commit them.

But even this sort contextualized justice has blind (haha) spots. Even if she made a correct judgement killing Vriska at the end of act 5, fate had it that it was an incorrect decision for victory, and an incorrect decision for her own psyche. This paradox is a cause of trouble for several versions of herself.

On the other hand, Gamzee’s bad faith and actions put him irrevocably on Terezi’s black list, and she is rather unable to forgive him, which leads her in a bad kismesitude with him. The lack of consideration for his own subjectivity and his close ties to the aspect of Rage (which is a subject for another paragraph) renders him obscure and an obsession for Terezi.

The aspect of mind shines brighter when it is needed: in times of decision making, of doubt and planning. Otherwise it meanders and can become hurtful to itself. Terezi’s lowest points were when she was put in a situation where all events where laid in front of her (intervening with the kids and mostly leading them towards dead timelines) and when she had nothing to do (during the pre-retcon meteor trip).

We don’t much about Latula that we can relate to her aspect, except for the fact that she is in a matespritship with Mituna, who is known to have a troubled mind.

Mind really is the outcomes of decisions made by people. It’s the mix of the path set by their circumstances and by their free will, the desire to reach a certain reality and the way it steers subjective beings.

 

 

**Heart** is opposite to mind, though it functions in a deeply intertwined manner with it. Interchangeable with the word “Soul”, it is, in a sense, the In-itself of the For-itself. The identity accompanying decisions taken in the past, or decisions considered enough, executed in theory, in alternate timelines, and the addition of them to the concept of an ultimate self. Calliope describes it this way:

  
UU: a path rUled by the heart aspect can be a joUrney of splintered self.   
UU: that is, the player's being may exhibit the same kind of fragmentation which certain classes coUld caUse in others.   
UU: i think this is what has triggered yoUr dUal-awareness between waking and dream selves, thoUgh it woUld not sUrprise me if the symptoms manifested in even more ways than this.

(Hussie, 6464)

Where mind judges people solely on the decision they took as a distinct being, heart makes no such judgement and takes everything it can under a single umbrella of the self, splintered, different.

Davepetasprite squared, who is also in parts a hero of heart defines the idea of the ultimate self within the comic.

everything that ever happens to every version of you is an important part of your ultimate self... like a superceding bodyless and timeless persona that crosses the boundaries of paradox space and unlike god tiers or bubble ghosts or whatever, it really IS immortal 

 (Hussie, 9906)

 

A bit like with space, heart is an aspect of propagation, but also of mutation and completeness. Parts of a soul can add up, splinter, fuse with other beings. If Mind is the outcome of actions and ambitions, Heart is the root of them, and is shared amongst all iterations of what can be defined as a single being.

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < understanding heart is all about the nuances of a distributed self   
DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < nepeta never got to make much headway with her aspect but shes finally gettin the chance   
DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < the time aspect is all about running into different versions of yourself so you kinda get confronted with it in a really literal way that can be disturbing 

(Hussie, 9906)

On the subject of Davepetasprite, they are in short the way Nepeta has realized her classpect, Rogue of Heart (someone who steals the soul for everyone’s benefits). She never got the chance to exploit it while alive, but by “stealing” Davesprite’s soul, they created a new being that both somewhat saved Davesprite, and allowed Nepeta access to the feelings and memories of encountering different versions of the self, thus acquiring realization of her aspect.

Mastery over the aspect of heart cannot be achieved without observing the paths taken by many versions of oneself. It is both harsher and more lenient in judgement than Mind, because while it allows for all versions of someone to be credited with certain actions, it also puts the blame on all versions of someone all the same for bad or hurtful decisions.

Dirk’s relationships to these concepts are fairly obvious, in that he has all sorts of splintered selves that almost represent all the ways into which he is perceived (by himself with Hal, by other with Brain Ghost Dirk, his idealized dream self), but that’s just scratching the surface of the many alter egos he seems to sprout everywhere.

Mind and Heart are two-edged swords, and emotionally challenging aspects to bear. However, without them there is no sense of responsibility over the self, no weight in subjectivity and identity.

 

**Breath** is opposed to Blood. It has often been associated with free will, but I disagree with that interpretation. It is opposed to Blood in that if Blood is control over subjective beings, beings who can make decisions that affect them personally as well as the timeline, breath is control over objective things, for the benefits of the subjective beings. Of course, subjectivity and objectivity coming on many levels, it is hard to exactly say what does and doesn’t count as subjective. Though given the story, I’d classify truly subjective beings as simply as: living players.

The first (and final) shows of control John exhibits as an Heir of Breath is being able to control the wind: with it, he can extinguish fires, clean the cartridge of the game he is a part of, clean the pipes from oil and free the fireflies, which are all impressive feats, not of control over himself or others, but over his environment. It is different from an objective aspect in that his powers are not engrained in unmovable, self-sustaining system, but is an outside force able to use its momentum to shape the world around it: a strong, independent force much as the wind.

Tavros, as a Page of Breath is a show of great potential over having influence upon objective things. This interpretation needs to include animals, consorts and bubble ghosts as objective beings: but it isn’t too much of a stretch, if we consider these to be of minor importance to the alpha timeline in terms of the decision they make. Maybe it is also the greatest show of his actualized potential to be able to control beings who blur the line between subjective and objective. Rufioh is a hard one to associate with the aspect because most of his arc involves people, at the time subjective, swaying over him. An angle that could work however is when we consider that most of his accomplishments were done against all odds, and that his mutation (as opposed to Tavros’ lack of mobility) instead allowed him more.

 

**Rage** is the last subjective aspect, and the last resort of subjectivity. To me, it seems intimately linked to the sort of Gothic ideals of destruction and repression. It is the aspect which covers the failure of subjectivity to measure up to other aspects: the feeling that comes with powerlessness and the challenging of previously held beliefs.

In somewhat the same way than hope, rage players are not quite held to the same rules and logic of reality, and can cut corners in terms of continuity or narrative. However, as opposed to hope, the feelings leading to these powers are not pure, but corrupted, disillusioned. Rage is a surrendering of free will and moral considerations, when the unconscious and subconscious come and play against the logically desired outcome of the mind.

The aspect of Rage is born out of all of the subjective aspects. It’s the pressure of choosing a path and having control over personal outcomes, the social orders and relationships, the impossibility to pin down a certain identity, the frightening control and lack of control someone has over their environment, and the hopes being challenged and crushed. It is characterized by the surrender to integrate objective facts and empathy to one’s own subjectivity.

In the case of Gamzee, we see him fully embrace his aspect once his beliefs are seriously challenged, as Dave sends him the ICP video turning his religion into a joke. From there, his actions have no meaning and are only focused on symbolically destroying the things that had value and encouraging the things he should have been against. It gives him “plot armor”, as his literal or symbolic destruction is of no importance anymore, it is not objectivity keeping him alive. The only way he could have died would have been to destroy himself, or benefit from a symbolical death, once all destruction is achieved.

 

## Individual and Relational analysis: The transformative aspects

 

The Transformative aspects are a single pair: Life and Doom

Known life players are: Jane Crocker, Feferi Peixes and Meenah Peixes

Known Doom players are: Sollux Captor and Mituna Captor

 

**Life** is the transformative aspect that allows for things to go from an objective state to a subjective state. It is the aspect of relevancy and being able to have a will that can make a difference. From it is literally born sentience and all subjective aspects. The most obvious use of this is to bring people to life (or in the case of Meenah, the thief, to kill them, albeit keeping them relevant through shenanigans). It is also the transition from material, objective wealth and energy into power, affection or relevancy. This could explain the apparent attraction between literal wealth inherited and pursued by the life players, along with Meenah’s ability to remain relevant even in death, by “stealing” life in some ways.

**Doom** on the other hand takes away relevancy and agency, makes things fade away, go from subjective to objective. It takes away established things and “returns them to the void”, in some way. Rage tends to lead towards doom, but doom has no special links to rage, except that it’s most likely the only aspect that could get rid of it. It is very much, in a clear cut way the opposite of Life, and things like wealth and power tend to be stripped away by the doom aspect. In the case of Mituna, his sacrifice was part of his sanity and in the case of Sollux, we can see his power being exploited by Vriska in order to kill Aradia. He is also the one to have created the game in his session, a game that eventually destroyed his entire species (or almost). Even only half dead, he tends to stay more irrelevant than some fully dead characters alongside him, and has no particular wish for it to be different. Doom is very closely related to void, with the difference that it does not yet comprise the potential of it.

 

## CONCLUSION

 

The convection model is named because of the form and movement of the “cycle of life” represented by the aspects. Together, they represent the building blocks of everything shown in the comic, from the plot to the characters. Of course, each character manifests a lot of aspects that aren’t theirs, simply because they function as ambassadors of their aspects and not the pure embodiment of it. The aspects themselves overlap because, though they are discreet entities, they still need similarities and parallels to work together.

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize if this analysis was long, wordy and maybe a bit abstract, but I hope it inspired you and allowed you to further think about these concepts, both in the context of Homestuck and in the context of real life philosophy and platonic realism. I’m very interested in hearing your comments or additions to these ideas!


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